Abstract

Non‐equilibrium distribution functions of electron gas and phonon gas excited with ultrashort intense laser pulses are calculated for laser‐induced plasmas occurring in solids. The excitation during femtosecondirradiation and the subsequent thermalization of the free electrons, as well as the dynamics of phonons are described by kinetic equations. The microscopic collision processes, such as absorption by inverse bremsstrahlung, electron‐electron collisions, and electron‐phonon interactions are considered by complete Boltzmanncollision integrals. We apply our kinetic approach for gold by taking s‐band electron into account and compare it with the case of excitation of d‐band electrons.